Original Post Date: Dec 26th, 2008
My grandmother used to measure her Christmas by how many Christmas cards she received. Any number under a hundred was a bad year. That number is difficult for me to fathom.
She would get over a hundred on any given year. They would line her house over the holidays. When I asked, bewildered, how she could recieve so many, I was issued the obvious reply: they were mostly sent through the mail. She corresponded, regularly, through what we now affectionately call "snail mail" with dozens of people - aquantences, families, old friends, relations of relations - and so, due to the nature of date, she would recieve a bounty of physical cards with Christmas sentiments. No doubt she dilligently sent a good number too.
This year I didn't send out a single card. I wrote a couple of emails, answered an obligatory phone call or two, sent off a handful of text messages and a facebook messages and called it a night. And that, I felt, was a lot of effort.
Over 100 Christmas cards. To a lady who was not a financial guru, or the wife of a renowned citizen, or someone's boss. She was an everyday woman who felt (for better or worse) it was important to keep in touch. And she was English.
New Year's is for looking back and looking forward. New Year's is for being selfish. In my secular apprecation for the holidays, I have always felt that Christmas is for the opposite: its for loving, and appreciating, and - as Coca Cola's white bearded old man reminds us - giving. Obviously these are things we should be doing every day, but that needn't erase a more directed practice for a couple of weeks.
This Christmas seemed a bit off. A bit removed. Christmas Future came and visited me displaying how exactly all my future Christmases would be if I continued on down the path I was on. And here's the funny part - nothing was particularly bad about it. It was just removed from love, and appreciation, and giving. From the icing that makes the cake worth eating.
It started unceremoniously, for one. The holidays came at an odd juncture, just after a weekend, as opposed to just before one. Half the people of value in my social circle had already come or gone or done their thing. It was a set of 4 days off. An extended weekend that happened to have Christmas in it. We'd see eachother soon and back at work again anyways. There was a hug... or two. And it was a hurried and ritualistic thing; an extention of punching the digital time clock. I hadn't even noticed that it lacked a wholesome and meaningful moment until it was well past finished.
And now, upon reflection, I begin to think of the other half of those people that mean something to me. With them there was no contact. How little I seem to give to them, that we are not even involved enough to need to bother checking in. That four days would be a drop in the bucket compared to how long we sometimes go without interacting. Not that I shall berate myself for it, of course. It has been an organic development. But what meaningless a growth that brings to fruit individualism from a soil of isolation. Standing on my own two feet is invaluable, but it is a skill that is more important to have than to actively utilize. Self sufficiency, surprisingly enough, can breed emotional laziness.
It continued as unceremoniously as it had started. And don't let me sound too critical. There was love and appreciation. Love for a mother and a father that I don't see nearly enough, and for the busy lives of my siblings. And I had pleanty of appreciation for the two (count them, 2!) turkey dinners that I was a part of. But the whole thing felt removed from the apprecation of the holiday. People were coming and going, in a silent determination to make sure everyone got everywhere in their due time. Everyone spending so much time going through the rhythm of the event that they forgot that it was supposed to be music. I arrived early, and had no plans but to hang out and enjoy my family's company. And yet, even my lethargy didn't seem to save me very well - while not succumbing to the hustle and bustle of the event, I didn't seem to be interested in finding something to appreciate. The whole world was simply spinning, and I was content to take little value in it. I was almost lost completely, until my dad turned on Star Trek.
The Space Channel was having a Star Trek Movie Marathon. My father and I meandered through 4 or 5 of them. My mom smiled when I whipped into the kitchen on a commercial to get a glass of orange juice and a handful of chocolate. See, Star Trek at my mom's place is a bit of a tradition. It evolved out of my loving the series, along with my brother and my father, and us all being too cheap to bother having TV at our places. And so, whenever we are stuck in a town with one traffic light visiting my mother and we have a couple hours before supper (or a couple hours just after breakfast... or a couple hours around lunch time), we toss on the Space Channel and watch Spock give his chant, or Picard philosophize about the Prime Directive.
And so, while the holiday ended as unceremoniously as it began (with a 5am wake-up call), I was not oblivious to my self-imposed directive. Sometimes loving is hard. It's easy to take advantage of and - to those who pursue it in its purest - it is incredibly risky. And the gift of love can so easily feel empty a lot of the time too. Appreciation... well, proper appreciation can be a lot of work. Much like exercise, sometimes you just don't want to bother. But getting out of emotional shape is so much worse than the effort it takes to give.
We have a multitude of mediums to facilitate well wishes like never before. We are well practiced at denouncing the value of such a commercial holiday. It seems, then, that we should feel empowered to put our mental money where our digital mouth is. It should be easy to leave the commercial behind, and send along the meaningful. 100 cards should pale in comparison. And, as we so diligently proclaim, there's no need to wait around for a specific day.
Happy Holidays. As always, I hope you are well.
That's 1.
- Z
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